Banana Mango Cookies

My daughter complained that my Chocolate Banana Oatmeal Cookies were too chewy, so for this iteration I tried to lighten things up a bit. I had on hand 2 over-ripe bananas and 1 very juicy mango. Since mango is quite sweet, I eliminated the maple syrup from the original recipe. To help the cookies rise and be more fluffy and less chewy, I added an egg, increased the baking powder, and cut out some of the flour. Since the mango was very juicy, I eliminated the yogurt and added granola to absorb some of the liquid. I increased the amount of cranberries a bit. I was out of fresh ginger, so I did without. I forgot to add the cinnamon to the cookie dough, so I sprinkled it over the cookies just before baking.

Even with no added sugar, the cookies are plenty sweet. A serving of 3 cookies packs 26 grams of sugar. The mango and banana account for 8 of those grams (fruits don’t count against “sweets” servings in the DASH diet). It’s very difficult to find unsweetened dried cranberries without paying a fortune, but if you do (maybe at a health food store?), you can cut 4 sugar grams off each serving (and 24 calories). The granola I used contributed 4 grams of sugar per serving — next time I may replace it with chopped nuts and extra oatmeal. The other major source of sugar is the chocolate chips: eliminate those, and you cut 6 grams of sugar out (and 3 grams of fat, and 53 calories)… but then you have to ask yourself: what’s the point of cookies without chocolate chips?